Port Adelaide provides latest on Houston, Boak, Lukosius, Lord, Soldo & more

Port Adelaide’s general manager of footy, Chris Davies, has commented on a number of players linked with player movement ahead of the upcoming trade period.

The Power have Dan Houston talks to navigate, the future of Travis Boak is up in the air, Jack Lukosius wants to join the club and the likes of Ollie Lord and Ivan Soldo have been spoken about in trade circles.

Read what Davies had to say on AFL Trade Radio’s The Early Trade below:

On Dan Houston getting to a Victorian club:

“As it stands right now we’ve got a decent period of time to be able to work through with Dan and any other club who wants to pay for his services,” said Davies.

“Our perspective has always been that we would prefer Dan to stay. We tried to bring in a couple of guys (including Harry Perryman) who might be able to do a job in replacing him but that hasn’t worked as well as we would have liked.

“Fair to say that needs a period of reflection now to see what we’re going to do next.

“For us it was about working with Dan in good faith to say, ‘If we can bring someone in who we believe might be able to replace you then we may be more open to uno leaving’.

“That hasn’t quite worked for us here. I don’t think Dan and his camp could suggest that we haven’t had a crack at bringing someone in who might be able to replace him.

“Dan won’t be leaving for anything less than what we think he’s worth.”

On Travis Boak’s future:

“We’ll sit down with Travis at some point over the next week or so to get a better sense of where his mind is at.

“In fairness to Trav, he played better footy in 2024 than he did in 2023. From that perspective I think there is some reason for him to continue to go on.

“But equally, after another devastating Preliminary Final loss, we want to make sure that Travis has the right amount of time to consider whether he actually wants to go again without making any knee-jerk reactions.

“Given what he’s done for Port Adelaide for so long, we need to treat Travis with the respect that he deserves and take the time pressure away from when the decision needs to be made.”

On landing departing Sun Jack Lukosius:

“If we are using a future first-round (pick), we’re going to have to ask the AFL for that discretion.

“We’re really thankful and pleased that Jack Lukosius has chosen to want to try and get to Port Adelaide through the trade period.

“We’ll work with Craig Cameron and the Gold Coast Suns to make sure we get that to happen.

“We see him as a forward. We think we can do some more development work to make him a really good forward.

“With Charlie Dixon going out, we played Esava Ratugolea up there, we’re mindful of Todd Marshall’s (concussion) situation, so bringing Jack Lukosius in, we think he’s a forward and he’ll get a crack at that position for us if we’re able to get him.”

On reported interest in Ollie Lord and if the club would look to trade him out:

“I don’t think so. There’s nothing in Ollie Lord’s exit meeting which would suggest that he was even having his head slightly turned about going elsewhere.

“People forget this year that Ollie got injured on the verge of Round 1. He would have definitely been in our team probably at the expense of Jeremy Finlayson.

“His season was largely derailed from there. I think that Ollie stays with us and gets a good crack in a forward line that has had a few players in front of him.

“When he’s been fit and played a number of games in a row he’s found himself in our AFL team. I don’t think there’s any reason to suggest that couldn’t be the case again next year.”

On Ivan Soldo wanting to leave:

“He’s had some injury challenges this year which have probably meant that he might view himself behind Jordon Sweet, who had a fantastic second half of the season.

“We’ve got really high hopes for Dante Visentini as a person who we think can play into the future.

“I think Ivan hasn’t settled in South Australia maybe the way that he would have liked. I’m sure that he’s probably thinking if he’s got a battle for the number one ruck spot then maybe he might want to live somewhere else.

“We’re ok with that, but it doesn’t mean we’re desperate to do a deal to move Ivan out. If you see that deal getting done through the trade period it will only be for a deal that we think is reasonable for us given what we gave up for him last year.

“That doesn’t mean we have to be nasty about it, but equally I don’t think there’s any reason for us right now to be doing a deal that we don’t think is for for Port Adelaide given Ivan and Dan are both contracted for decent periods.”

On Zak Butters rumours:

“Quite happy to say that Zak won’t be going anywhere.”

On Stuart Dew assistant coaching rumours:

“We’ve got a position that we need to fill and we’ll be working through what that looks like over the next fortnight.

“Luke Kelly is out of contract and we made a decision to let him move on. We’ll reassess what we think over the next period of time.

“Stuey is a person I’ve known for a long time. He has a storied career at Port Adelaide and has done a good job as a coach. He’s obviously working with Brisbane in a part-time capacity this year.

“We’ve got some interest in Stu but where that ends up we’ll work out over the next couple of weeks.”

Listen to the full chat with Davies below: